Military ranks

[thothkins]

not looking at Thotkins here

Hey! I resembled that remark! before the grenade incident.

If one were to trot back to the first mission* one would understand that li'l thothkins had PTSD, so there

*insane terror mission with explosions going off all around him.

I'm a bit torn on this one. I like having the soldiers earn their promotions, but agree that it looks a bit odd having everyone at the same level. Well, by odd I mean silly.

On balance, I'd have to go with the X-Com route. Not because it happens to be X-Com, but because it makes the most sense in practice.

Having said that, I see no real problems with having Privates being promoted to Corporals/ Lance Corporals. It makes sense in such a small, specialised squad. But it should be pretty much the pyramid form then on out.

I'd also like to +1 the Officer training. Every squad should have the chance of getting a Gorman. You can put anyone you like through Officer training, when there's a gap in the structure and they get the post after being away in training.

That would mean getting a choice between training school and automatic promotions that might be a bit fiddly. But it works for me.

Xitax's post above also works well. What did Gorman bring to the party? There has to be some sort of tactical bonus for having a raw Lt.

All the medals should make a difference to status of your troops in lieu of actual promotion?

[jkamcmillen]

A regular army platoon (3 sections of approx 6-8 men/women paired into fire teams) would have all NCMs and one officer commanding them called the "Platoon Commander" as his position title separate from his actual rank. Sgts would lead each section as a "Section Commander" (and have their own "2IC" for each section who would be a Senior Corporal) and a senior Sgt would generally be the "Platoon 2IC" as his position title. (and/or the rank of Warrant in the Canadian military) who would be under the officer to take care of the men while the "Platoon Commander" focused primarily on the mission at hand. As problems and other issues occurred men of other ranks would "fill in" to pick up the missing ranked personnel to fit in these positions.

That's the hardcore, by-the-book way that it's normally done in a somewhat vague nutshell.

In a special operations unit such as what Xenonauts would have, this sort of regular structure would go out the window in much the way that US special forces groups like the Navy Seals, Delta Force and so on would. Instead they would probably go off combat experience instead, however each would still have their assigned positions/jobs within their "squads". X-COM didn't really define a commander or 2IC, they just let you do this via equipping the troops and moving them as you choose.

If you did want to add some added layer to promoting or moving personnel up into higher positions you could allow for such assignment. Then again, allowing for vague definition would allow the player to assume this all on their own, just by familiarity of their own people after using them from mission to mission.

Just some food for thought.

[Erchamion]

You could have an experience level needed to get to the next rank and going on missions granting a base experience:

Soldier not going on missions not gaining any experience, never level up.

Soldier going on mission but stay on Chinook all mission, 10 missions to level up.

Soldier going on mission doing average exploring/killing, 6-7 missions to level up.

Soldier going on mission doing heavy exploring/killing, 3-4 missions to level up.

You could also have it so you need 21 soldiers to unlock the LT rank, 41 soldiers to unlock the second LT spot and 61 soldiers to unlock the CPT rank.Then depending on how many soldiers you have you could add a second CPT at 101 and even a Major at 121-141 soldiers.

[Gauddlike]

Everyone follows the players commands, there is no point in adding an extra layer to try and mimic a real world command structure.

If you gave orders to a squad leader who passed them on to his subordinates then maybe it would be worthwhile.

If you have 8 troops on a Chinook then it can be assumed that one of them is in charge.

For the purposes of the game it really doesn't matter who.

Higher ranks are supposed to provide more morale to the troops around them, and a bigger hit when they die.

Don't think this is implemented yet though.

Combat experience and promotion should be linked.

Higher rank positions should be limited by the number of lower ranks, probably with a focus on significant numbers of lower ranks over officers.

The actual rank names, number of ranks etc don't really matter.

To be fair they should probably be as divorced from real military structure as possible.

It is easier that way as you don't have people telling you that you got the ratio of captains to majors wrong or the role of the commander isn't realistic.

@Thotkins

If one were to trot back to the first mission* one would understand that li'l thothkins had PTSD, so there

P***ing Trousers, Skyranger Dependency?

[War Games]

to Erchamion, thothkins, jkamcmillen

On page 7, I proposed a structure where there is a ratio of the higher ranks and the number of enlisted personnel, with an emphasis on small tactical groups.

The structure is very similar to the organization of special forces, the only difference is that the game is attracted to the service of not trained soldiers, not professionals with experience in military operations are already in the rank of sergeant or above.

[Gorlom]

Everyone follows the players commands, there is no point in adding an extra layer to try and mimic a real world command structure.

If you gave orders to a squad leader who passed them on to his subordinates then maybe it would be worthwhile.

If you have 8 troops on a Chinook then it can be assumed that one of them is in charge.

For the purposes of the game it really doesn't matter who.

Higher ranks are supposed to provide more morale to the troops around them, and a bigger hit when they die.

Don't think this is implemented yet though.

Combat experience and promotion should be linked.

Higher rank positions should be limited by the number of lower ranks, probably with a focus on significant numbers of lower ranks over officers.

The actual rank names, number of ranks etc don't really matter.

To be fair they should probably be as divorced from real military structure as possible.

It is easier that way as you don't have people telling you that you got the ratio of captains to majors wrong or the role of the commander isn't realistic.

@Thotkins

P***ing Trousers, Skyranger Dependency?

For the most part I agre with this (especially the PTSD definition) But I'm hopeing that I will be able to mod out

Higher rank positions should be limited by the number of lower ranks, probably with a focus on significant numbers of lower ranks over officers.

I want all my soldiers to be captains (or whatever). There is no chain of command so there isn't any point of a pyramid structure imo.

[War Games]

I want all my soldiers to be captains (or whatever). There is no chain of command so there isn't any point of a pyramid structure imo.

And more, them to be goblins or elves ...

[Gorlom]

And more, them to be goblins or elves ...

You still haven't got the point I was tring to make eh? Besides I never mentioned goblins and/or elves. Would you please be kind as to not put words in my mouth again, thank you. Edited May 29, 2012 by Gorlom

[Swe_Racoon]

I'm pretty fine with how it was done in X-COM, and the amount of ranks there. If one was to go hardcore there'd be a boatload of ranks pretty much for the same level of experience (In Sweden we have recruit, private first, second, third and fourth class, vice corporal, corporal and finally sergeant, all for conscripted/enlisted men, not counting the two or three ranks that were replaced by sergeant a few years ago).

For someone not versed in military ranks it can be pretty hard to tell the difference. I for example often mix up the various ranks of corporals and sergeants. So my vote goes for keeping the ranks that are there now (adding the missing LT's of course) and using a system of promotion like that in X-COM, or the manual promotion would be nice instead.

[Erchamion]

I want all my soldiers to be captains (or whatever). There is no chain of command so there isn't any point of a pyramid structure imo.

If your going to have all your soldiers be the same rank then sergeant would be a much better rank, having all your soldiers being captains would just be plain stupid.

And yeah there is no chain of command in the game but a pyramid structure would give an illusion that there is which would make the game more fun to play for some people, like me for instance.

[Gorlom]

If your going to have all your soldiers be the same rank then sergeant would be a much better rank, having all your soldiers being captains would just be plain stupid.

In that case I'm going to take it one (or ten) step further and have all of them be fleet admirals!

And yeah there is no chain of command in the game but a pyramid structure would give an illusion that there is which would make the game more fun to play for some people, like me for instance.

Yeah, I figured that. That's why I want to mod it out rather then demand it to be in release. ^^

Edited May 29, 2012 by Gorlom

[Gauddlike]

The way I outlined it in my last post was pretty much the same way it was done in the original x-com:eu and tftd.

Have a look at this wiki page, see if it makes it clearer what I was trying to get across.

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Promotions

*edit* Forgot to mention that the exception was that I would not allow anyone to be promoted if they had less combat experience than other candidates and that promotion would reset combat experience to the lowest required for their new rank.

If some sergeant is sitting in a base somewhere doing nothing he should not be promoted over a more active sergeant just because he got there first.

Edited May 29, 2012 by Gauddlike

[Erchamion]

Yeah I also liked the promotions in XCOM, for the most part.

What I didn't like was the Rookie and Squaddie rank names, I also think that there should have been at least one but preferably 3 ranks between the Sergeant and the Captain ranks, plus I think that Captain should have been the highest rank.

*edit* Forgot to mention that the exception was that I would not allow anyone to be promoted if they had less combat experience than other candidates and that promotion would reset combat experience to the lowest required for their new rank.

If some sergeant is sitting in a base somewhere doing nothing he should not be promoted over a more active sergeant just because he got there first.

+1 to this

[451]

I believe that the XCOM system of having promotions as a limited resource is a system that immerses you in and is superior therein. I do agree that the change needed to it would be to have control over who becomes promoted, though this needs one more change. Have it be where a meritocracy is what takes control - soldiers who actually preform on missions gain promotions away from corporal (I assume that's the equivalent of squaddie) can be selected for promotion to sergeant and higher.

It was a simple change that made it more realistic in my mind. Immersion is an important part to me and it makes me behave much more realistically.

[ElTee]

If it's just meant to represent experience over rank, why not have it do exactly that?

Recruit (RCT)

Green (GRN)

Regular (REG)

Seasoned (SZN)

Veteran (VTN)

Elite (ELT)

[War] Hero (WH or HRO)

They're ranks in terms of experience but not actual military ranks. This allows things to make sense from an in-setting perspective and doesn't require you to make the game more complicated.

Unless the devs decide to add some sort of mechanics to make ranks relevant beyond personal stat lines (abilities, being able to requisition things, leadership/morale), there's no point to having military ranks, be they accurate or not. Having the highest rank of any soldier be equal to the amount of soldiers you have, with the most experienced ones taking the highest rank? I guess that makes a little bit of sense, but not completely anyway. Like someone else said, there's no 'actual' command structure when you play the game.

Edited September 30, 2012 by ElTee

[451]

For the most part I agre with this (especially the PTSD definition) But I'm hopeing that I will be able to mod out

I want all my soldiers to be captains (or whatever). There is no chain of command so there isn't any point of a pyramid structure imo.

If a soldiers rank has a modifier to how much morale is lost when they or someone else dies then I want that to be limited by having a smaller pool of high-ranking officer types to lower echelon troops.

It would make a high-ranking morale-loss-reducing individual a finite resource while also causing it to be a tragedy when they are unfortunately struck down in the heat of battle. That was part of X-com, keeping the captains and colonels back while the squaddies and rookies do the dirty work.

That would be the point of the pyramid style structure.

[Gauddlike]

The higher ranks do give an increased penalty to morale when they die.

They also give increased morale bonuses when standing near lower ranked troops.

Well that is the plan, not sure how much of it has been implemented yet

[Gorlom]

If a soldiers rank has a modifier to how much morale is lost when they or someone else dies then I want that to be limited by having a smaller pool of high-ranking officer types to lower echelon troops.

It would make a high-ranking morale-loss-reducing individual a finite resource while also causing it to be a tragedy when they are unfortunately struck down in the heat of battle. That was part of X-com, keeping the captains and colonels back while the squaddies and rookies do the dirty work.

That would be the point of the pyramid style structure.

You could do all sorts of balance mechanics to counter your whole team panicking after the second captain dies. Like for instance let captains take less of a hit to their morality when a soldier of same or lower rank dies.

I'm not sure I think not being allowed to play with my best dudes because my team would panic if they died is good game design. I want panic to be in the game but I don't want to be forced to have my chinook babysit my high ranking soldiers.

If you want to play the game that way and protect your high rankers then go ahead and do that. you obviously get enjoyment out of it. Me, not so much.

[ElTee]

You could do all sorts of balance mechanics to counter your whole team panicking after the second captain dies. Like for instance let captains take less of a hit to their morality when a soldier of same or lower rank dies.

I'm not sure I think not being allowed to play with my best dudes because my team would panic if they died is good game design. I want panic to be in the game but I don't want to be forced to have my chinook babysit my high ranking soldiers.

If you want to play the game that way and protect your high rankers then go ahead and do that. you obviously get enjoyment out of it. Me, not so much.

Perhaps, rather than a greater morale loss, officers would only give greater morale? It'd still be a loss to lose them regardless of how rank effects morale. But if morale matters, I guess it's fine to have actual ranks. I like the idea of ranks being slotted if the devs go with real ranks.

[451]

You could do all sorts of balance mechanics to counter your whole team panicking after the second captain dies. Like for instance let captains take less of a hit to their morality when a soldier of same or lower rank dies.

I'm not sure I think not being allowed to play with my best dudes because my team would panic if they died is good game design. I want panic to be in the game but I don't want to be forced to have my chinook babysit my high ranking soldiers.

If you want to play the game that way and protect your high rankers then go ahead and do that. you obviously get enjoyment out of it. Me, not so much.

The high ranking individuals in Xcom for me were, more often than not, not the better individuals in the squad. They did get the rank bonus for when they leveled up, but after a short while in the game the squaddies eventually surpassed them with getting battlefield experience.

In talking about good game design, I believe that it is. You can send your captain or colonel out first, but you're assuming a huge risk for minimal gain based off of stats not to mention acting short sighted in the grand scheme of the game, it's not as if the game simply refuses to let you use your high-ranking officers in dangerous scenarios.

Overall, I believe that having ranks being a finite resource based off of the number of soldiers present adds a level of complexity to the game that fits right in with the overall terrifying feeling of the game.

[Gorlom]

The high ranking individuals in Xcom for me were, more often than not, not the better individuals in the squad. They did get the rank bonus for when they leveled up, but after a short while in the game the squaddies eventually surpassed them with getting battlefield experience.

I don't think Xenonauts and X-com promote their soldiers on the same basis. It was my understanding that Xenonauts get promoted based on how many skill points they have gotten? Have I gotten that wrong? How does Xenonauts get promoted?

In talking about good game design, I believe that it is. You can send your captain or colonel out first, but you're assuming a huge risk for minimal gain based off of stats not to mention acting short sighted in the grand scheme of the game, it's not as if the game simply refuses to let you use your high-ranking officers in dangerous scenarios.

Heh, funny. Most people on this forum champions giving players choice, this is one of the few times I see someone else advocating limitations

Still I'm confused by the discussion. It seems you are assuming a pyramid structure in your argument why you prefer pyramid structures over letting everyone be top ranked. It wouldn't be as huge a risk to have my captain up front if i have 6 captains. You know what? I've completely lost the thread here.

Overall, I believe that having ranks being a finite resource based off of the number of soldiers present adds a level of complexity to the game that fits right in with the overall terrifying feeling of the game.

That's fine. I'm still going to mod out the pyramid structure for my own personal enjoyment (that does not affect anyone else)

Edited October 1, 2012 by Gorlom

[451]

I don't think Xenonauts and X-com promote their soldiers on the same basis. It was my understanding that Xenonauts get promoted based on how many skill points they have gotten? Have I gotten that wrong? How does Xenonauts get promoted?

I believe it is as you said, Xenonauts promotes based off of stat increases gained, which leads to situations where your entire army is compromised of Captains or what have you.

Heh, funny. Most people on this forum champions giving players choice, this is one of the few times I see someone else advocating limitations

If there was an option to check where the rank structure was a hierarchy or not, I would be for that. However, this is not the case, it seems to be from my research on the forums that the base game will have one set rank structure, which is a completely meaningless one were it's only representative of a level gained by your soldiers.

Still I'm confused by the discussion. It seems you are assuming a pyramid structure in your argument why you prefer pyramid structures over letting everyone be top ranked. It wouldn't be as huge a risk to have my captain up front if i have 6 captains. You know what? I've completely lost the thread here.

My posts have been about advocating a pyramid rank structure and why I feel it's beneficial to the game. If you're talking about the OP then I believe he was just talking about the rank names that could potentially be in the game, I was talking more about the benefits and ramifications where limited ranks and bonuses (and penalties) to morale coincide.

That's fine. I'm still going to mod out the pyramid structure for my own personal enjoyment (that does not affect anyone else)

I don't believe you'll be the one having to do that.

[Gorlom]

I believe it is as you said, Xenonauts promotes based off of stat increases gained, which leads to situations where your entire army is compromised of Captains or what have you.

If there was an option to check where the rank structure was a hierarchy or not, I would be for that. However, this is not the case, it seems to be from my research on the forums that the base game will have one set rank structure, which is a completely meaningless one were it's only representative of a level gained by your soldiers.

My posts have been about advocating a pyramid rank structure and why I feel it's beneficial to the game. If you're talking about the OP then I believe he was just talking about the rank names that could potentially be in the game, I was talking more about the benefits and ramifications where limited ranks and bonuses (and penalties) to morale coincide.

I don't believe you'll be the one having to do that.

why do you believe that? where exactly have your research found any indications that this game will not have a pyramid rank structure? as far as I know the rank mechanics aren't done yet and I seem to be the only one in this whole thread that doesn't want a pyramid structure? (might be someone else that can do without it, but the majority seems to want it.)

[Gauddlike]

The pyramid structure is nice on paper.

However if you have an active team of 12 troops with another 100 back in the base your active team are almost certainly going to be your 12 highest ranks anyway.

The only time the pyramid structure works is at the start of the game in general.

Personally I don't really care either way.

As long as there is some progression and my active troops benefit from it the most I am not going to be overly concerned.

[451]

why do you believe that? where exactly have your research found any indications that this game will not have a pyramid rank structure? as far as I know the rank mechanics aren't done yet and I seem to be the only one in this whole thread that doesn't want a pyramid structure? (might be someone else that can do without it, but the majority seems to want it.)

This is direct from the FAQ pinned at the top of this particular section of the forums.

Q. How do soldiers increase in rank, and what attributes does it offer?

A. Soldiers are promoted once they have earned a set number of attribute increases on the battlefield (in any statistic), with later ranks requiring more attribute increases to attain promotion. Rank is not tied to the number of soldiers the player has – you can have a team entirely comprised of Commanders if you are skilful enough!

Increased rank provides a bonus to the morale of the rest of the team (and therefore psionic defence). This also works in reverse, so bringing newly recruited Rookies along to the fight actually provides a morale penalty to the team, at least until they have earned their stripes in battle and been promoted to Corporals.

That's from Gazz and as far as I know that is what will be in the game.

The pyramid structure is nice on paper.

However if you have an active team of 12 troops with another 100 back in the base your active team are almost certainly going to be your 12 highest ranks anyway.

The only time the pyramid structure works is at the start of the game in general.

Personally I don't really care either way.

As long as there is some progression and my active troops benefit from it the most I am not going to be overly concerned.

I can see that type of logic affecting the current XCOM re-imaging done by Firaxis considering that you only have 1 base, but playing the original XCOM where I would build up to 3 or 4 response bases coupled with a few manufacturing bases I would have anywhere between 40 to 90 soldiers, while rotating high-ranking officers to new bases so to have the veterans spread around with the influx of new recruits. Xenonauts seems to reward you for building extra interception bases as you can effectively cover more of the world and respond to alien threats more often. The missions that they would run, which would be very frequently, would mostly comprise of A captain or colonel, 2 to 3 sergeants, and the rest being 6 to 7 rookies and squaddies for the interception crew, with a small contingency back at base in case of an emergency base attack.